The Drought Pool
by hollywooddove
Summary: A naturally innocent location is the haunt of man's childhood nightmares.


Here is a warning, perhaps to save you from something deathly. I can only give you a scrap of truth, and even if you beg me, it's for the protection of your own livelihood that you know as much as you can, but not every detail. You will be curious, and maybe you will act upon it, but I suggest you do not, strongly.

As a Georgian native, you know the sounds of the back woods, the scents, the trails, your favorite locations you visit for peace of mind, and those you avoid. Haven't you ever found it odd, and if you think you know this true, that you do return to those places you know you should avoid? What are you searching for? Do we have a hope in which nature has inverted its principles just for us? Or is the delight in returning to the scene of a crime a force within every human?

For me, it was as if a voice were calling which I could not hear. My attention was arrested by the glory of the forest, my mind was quiet, and my feet stepped carelessly forward. Nevertheless, I found myself here, back to the place of childhood nightmares. And I gazed upon it, not wanting to believe, but unable to resist.

I had heard Mutt, my dog, calling. He was calling, begging me to come to his aid. This is what I had heard when I had gotten deep in the woods. This I could hear, as clearly as any bird in the surrounding trees. I knew Mutt's call from all others; I loved him. There are some relationships with some dogs which live in a heart forever; Mutt had mastered a relationship of this kind in my heart. But I had not seen Mutt in over 30 years.

And so, led by his begging call, I had returned to the last place I had ever seen him, as a child, in this very location I had tried to forget. Yet here I was, returned, deep in these woods, and more terrified than I ever was as a child. And I gazed upon it, a pool of water, perhaps some five or six feet in circumference, and only a couple of inches deep in the center, and as clean and clear as any water could be. The hard Georgia clay at the bottom of the pool was cracked and smooth, every detail obtainable below the very still water. What is out of place, is the season had been very dry, one of those Georgia summers we all remember, where the lakes recede so far from the banks you can almost walk from edge to edge. The fall time had started, and still no rain had fallen. Creeks and streams were but trickles. As a Georgian, you know these times, so I don't have to tell you that a puddle of water only a couple of inches deep standing in the woods is impossibility.

Mutt called me, just as he had so many years ago, from this very location. I have never had a hallucination in my life, so I cannot tell you what one experiences when having a delusion, and so I wished deeply that what I was hearing was indeed only a mad snap of my mind. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, searching for the reasonable. I could be mistaken. There could be a dog trapped or hurt in the woods, and isn't it very possible that another dog could sound like my Mutt? Of course. So I took an ever deeper breath facing the sky, and I opened my eyes to see a single leaf tumbling slowly from the autumn trees. I tracked it, sailing downward in a slow spiral. When it landed on the pool of water, sank, and vanished below the clear water as if the leaf had dissolved, is when a sorrowful panic rose to the back of my throat, and those horrible memories were triggered.

Unlike today, children of my day were free to roam within reason. Mutt and I had roamed, on a rainy spring day, into the woods. I was but ten years of age, and Mutt was much older in his dog years. We ran over the slick wet grass, over fallen trees, in and out of puddles. This horrible puddle had been there on that day, and it seems to me now it had never left. Maybe it had never dried up, or never does. It may have been here since the beginning of all time or since that terrible day of the Lord when all living remnants on the face of the Earth were swallowed by his flood. I cannot say, I can only guess. But I suppose it to be ancient, much older than this nation we live in.

I had run by this unsuspecting puddle on that day of my youth. I gave it no notice, and my feet had barely missed it. Mutt, on the other hand, went straight way into it. I remember stopping then, as he called out from behind me, and I had turned to see him swimming and struggling to climb out of what must have been a deep hole of water. My parents had always warned me to be careful when in the woods, that old wells were in some places. And this was what first came to mind. Mutt has fallen into a well and could not get out. I dashed back to him as he clawed on the mud with his front paws, trying desperately to climb out of the water. I grabbed his front paws and began to pull, "Don't worry boy, I got ya." It is then I froze, as I saw the entire portion of his body below the neck was not there. The weight on which I pulled declared the rest of him there, Mutt was a large dog of German Shepherd size, but it was missing, as if it were invisible, hidden by the clear water itself. Plus, this was no well; I could see that the water Mutt struggled to climb out of was only an inch or so deep.

I had frozen in place, holding his paws, not understanding what I was seeing. I regained the goal of the moment with an ever more feverish attempt to pull Mutt from the puddle. I leaned back in all of my fury. Mutt squirmed, wiggled, panted, and whined; I can only guess now there was nothing for his back paws to have climbed against in the mysterious nether they had fallen.

Suddenly, he yelped, and a tug more powerful than mine tore him from my grip. He vanished. I could still hear him calling to me from below the puddle. I did not dare touch the puddle, and I noticed as I glared over in it, I did not cast a reflection upon it. Drops of rain from the spring shower fell all around me, popping the ground and chattering among leaves, yet the surface of the pool was undisturbed.

I ran. From fear so deep in my heart it felt it might explode, I ran. I flew out of the woods and into my home, crashing on my bed in drenched clothes, sobbing for the loss of my friend whom I had no control to save. Of course my parents asked to where Mutt was, and I simply replied, I don't know. I did not want to think on what I had seen or how I had failed Mutt. Upon some weeks afterwards, I would travel back into the woods and call for Mutt, and there was never an answer. Not only this, but I could not find the location of that dreadful pool of water, no matter how intently I searched.

And so I gazed upon it now, as an adult, once again hearing Mutt's cries for help. With a voice which trembled from the fears of child through the throat of an adult who had so long ago casted away the belief of such superstitions, I moaned, "Mutt?"

Mutt barked for his master, as he would, as he always did when called. He barked from where ever he was. "Mutt? You come here boy. Come here boy," I called as a child would call a pup. He barked and whined again. "You come here now, boy. Come on!"

Suddenly the pool splashed from the edge, paws only thrashed and clinched the edge. I dropped to my knees, purely reactionary, and grabbed them with my adult hands. This time, I would be stronger. This time I would pull him free. I dug my heels into the ground and heaved backwards, and the tip of a black canine nose began to push out of the water. My teeth were in such grinding my neck tendons almost cramped. I gripped harder around his paws, and my arms trembled as I pulled. Then, he was torn from my grip again, as easily as though I were a child again. My heart sank with him.

I leaned over the water of no reflection, palms down by its edge, and screamed, "Mutt!" He did not answer this time. I almost, in a brief moment of what I can only call insanity, thrust my hand into the pool, but I stopped only within touch of it. With all which was in me, I would not let this hideous abomination of nature best me again.

I grabbed a long, stout, fallen branch and stabbed it into the puddle. It went much farther into the pool than it ever should have, breaking all laws of known science. It disappeared as it went farther in; fading away into whatever world it was traversing. I called to Mutt again, commanding him to fetch the stick as I gently swirled it around.

The branch twitched, and tugged from the other side. I smiled, "That's a boy Mutt, hold on tight," and I began to pull back. He was heavy indeed, but I made progress, slowly easing the branch out. I kept my footing prepared in case the branch were to pull back too forcefully, so I would be able to release it and not be pulled in with it. "Don't let go boy, just hang on."

I could see something surfacing, gripped to the branch, and I smiled broadly, "That's it boy, hang on tight." My smile twisted into a shock and horror as I tugged strongly on the branch, and saw not my Mutt gripped to the branch, but a human hand. Though only a glimpse did I see before I turned loose as though I had found myself mistakenly holding the tail of venomous snake rather than a tree branch, I saw the unmistakable sleeve of a coat I had seen many times in old photographs of brown and white. It was the sleeve of a Confederate soldier.

His wrist, arm, and the branch vanished into the puddle. I backed away, realizing I would never save Mutt from this horrible fright. It was then and there, I also realized this abomination had been found before me, long before me, with less fortunate outcomes. Only imaginable is the number of lives that may be below.

So, I tell you only fragments of the truth, for your own safety, because I know too well the strength of human courage and curiosity. For I would never tell you where these woods are, looking so beautiful in their Georgia setting. It is my firm belief you would go looking for this mysterious pool. I can only tell you if you should happen upon a puddle of water in the deep woods which seem out of place, in which the season should forbid it existing, or should it cast no reflection upon you, or should you hear calls of help from anyone or anything beneath its clear and shallow water; it is best avoided.

Happy Halloween


End file.
